Stable human oral cancer cell carcinoma cell line

The present invention is directed to a stable, continuous, human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell line from the floor of the mouth of a habitual tobacco consumer using a variety of growth supplements and complement mediated lysis to obtain a fibroblast free culture. This cell line has the ability to produce tumor in athymic nude mice. The cell line of the present invention constitutes a system that is suitable for detecting and screening for new and effective anti-cancer therapies. This cell line provides in vitro and in vivo (xenographts in athymic mice) oral tumor model which is useful for understanding molecular basis of oral cancer development, identifying targets for designing novel therapeutic strategies, testing new gene therapy approaches for oral cancer and testing novel synthetic retinoids for chemoprevention of oral cancer.